THE HISTORY OF COFFEE. 15 



clous drink \ Everything has, indeed, its history or tradition, 

 and so has the fragrant little berry, the aromatic incense of 

 which so gratefully greets our olfactory nerve, at the repast 

 which ushers in the dawn and close of day. 



Coffee, it appears, became known to civilization at an epoch 

 memorable for many marvellous events. It was about the time 

 of the great awakening of mankind from the long slumbers of 

 the Middle Ages, when those great luminaries, Columbus and 

 Faust, blazed upon the world. One brought to light a new 

 hemisphere, and the other gave to mankind the " art preserva- 

 tive of arts," and the light of intelligence to the whole civilized 

 globe. Coffee was originally known by the name of JTauM, 

 an orthography somewhat suggestive of a certain Town Council- 

 lor of Leeds, who, writing out a " bill of fare " for a public 

 breakfast, contrived 'to spell coffee without employing a single 

 letter that occurs in that word, thus Kawphy ! Although the 

 plant or tree is indigenous to Southern Abyssinia, where it is 

 even to the present day cultivated, yet it derived its name from 

 Kaffa, in Eastern Africa, where the plant also grows wild, and 

 very abundantly. The Malays, who from their intercourse with 

 the Arabs have long known the berry, call it by the Arabian 

 name, Kawah / the Javanese, however, in common with our- 

 selves, designate it Coffee. There is an Eastern legend which 

 ascribes the discovery of the berry to a Dervish named Hadji 

 Omer, who, in the year 1285, being driven out of Mocha, 

 was induced, in the extremity of hunger, to roast the berries 

 which grew near his hiding-place. He ate them, as the only 

 means of sustaining life ; and steeping the roasted berries in 

 water, to quench his thirst, he thus discovered their agreeable 

 qualities, and also that the infusion was nearly equal to solid 

 food. His persecutors, who had intended that he should die of 

 starvation, regarded his preservation as a miracle. He was ac- 

 cordingly transmuted into a saint forthwith ! 



